Hylozoic (37 page)

“The pitchfork is the one who'll take you to heaven,” said old Dora, her eyes still glazed. “Down, down, down.”

“Right! I'm gonna call up a native aktual to make a whirlpool for her and her hubbie,” said Groovy, whipping up a little eddie in the bath water. “Pull 'em all the way through. Same as Jayjay did for me back on Pepple. Only he was a crow, and he brought us a tornado.”

“I think he's talking about paths into the subdimensions,” said Thuy uneasily. “The world's basement. It's under everything that we see. I fell into it once. Things live down there. Subbies. First they looked like birds and jackals, and then they looked like cactuses.”

“Demons of the underworld,” intoned Luc. “To me they look like lizards and bats.”

“They look like whatever you expect to see,” said Groovy. “If you'd pushed on deeper, Thuy, you'd already be a zedhead runecaster. I'm fixin' to take you and Jay past infinity. For a little while you'll be aktuals.”

“I don't want any more changes right now,” said Thuy,
longing for the meditative medieval vibe she'd sensed when first entering the tub. “Leave me alone, Groovy.”

“I'll go check on Jay,” said the pitchfork, and hopped toward the rear door, his handle rapping on the floor.

“I hadn't realized you're such a powerful mage,” Luc said to Thuy, clearly impressed. “
Multum in parvulo
. Great craft from this tiny one. Suppose we talk at length in the tavern.”

Just then three grimy soldiers entered the bathhouse with a pair of giggling women. Spotting the pitchfork darting out the back door, one of the soldiers called, “Halt!” But by then Groovy was gone.

Nothing daunted, the women shucked their gowns and splashed into the tub, letting out prolonged shrieks. One of the soldiers looked familiar—a man in leather pants and jerkin, with a blond mustache and a tight blue hat pulled down to his eyes. He was the one whom Jayjay had knocked to the ground last night in that alley. Busy fumbling with his clothes, he hadn't yet registered Thuy's presence. The wiry, dark-skinned soldier who was at his side did notice Thuy, but he was more interested in the full-sized women in the water.

Moving fast, Thuy hopped out of the tub and ran around behind the soldiers, pulling on her clothes on the way to the dining room. She found an empty table and slipped into a chair.

 

 

Across the tavern, three actors were rehearsing tableaux of Bible scenes, smoothly moving through Adam and Eve, the Annunciation, and the Second Coming of Jude Christ. Beside them a lutist, a bagpiper, and a drummer were tuning up. By the kitchen door, a pair of jugglers were practicing with the inn's bowls and pitchers, ignoring Vrouw Engst's
admonitions to stop. Thuy was happy to be in this buzzing medieval hive.

Azaroth appeared and, spotting Thuy, sat down with her. “Nice and clean?”

“I am,” she said, grinning.

“Who was in the stew?” asked Azaroth, interested in the inn gossip. “Anja? She's the one I really like.”

“She was there. But—”

Azaroth waved off the rest of the information. “I'll tell you a secret,” he said. “If I were to stay on, I'd think about giving Anja a better life. I can see her as a mother, can't you? Of course Bosch's maid isn't bad either. Kathelijn. A guy could really settle down here.”

Before Thuy could respond, Dora and Luc joined them. “This is my friend the fisherman,” she said, introducing Azaroth. “These two are—”

“Mountebanks, charlatans, swindlers,” said Luc showing his teeth through his trim black beard. “You never did tell us your profession, Thuy.” He'd garbed himself in a red cape that made Thuy realize she'd seen him on the road into town that afternoon.

“I'm a metanovelist,” she said, then paused, trying to think of a better word. After all, novels didn't really exist in Bosch's time, let alone metanovels that were a thousand times as long—or thick, or deep, or branched . . . “I tell tales,” she amended. “Mostly about me. I'd like to preserve all my thoughts, if I could.”

“God preserves our thoughts in any case,” said Dora piously. “He knows what's done and what's to come. My second sight flows from Him, you understand, and not from the Evil One.”

“Oh, spare us the crap,” said Azaroth impatiently. “I'm hungry.”

“Thank you, but we've already eaten,” said Luc, as smoothly as if Azaroth had invited them to a meal. “But we've nowhere near drunk our fill. Perhaps we can gamble for the check?” He wiggled his long fingers. A pair of dice clacked to the table and came to rest showing two sixes. He crooked a finger and the dice hopped into his hand.

“You are in grave danger,” said Dora, suddenly clutching Azaroth by the sleeve. “I see manacles around your wrists. And above your head—a noose. If you buy us wine, I can tell you more.”

“You met these two in the bath, Thuy?” said Azaroth, looking annoyed. “Hey!” he yelled to Vrouw Engst. “Roast pork for me. And a beer! That's it.”

The musicians had launched a squalling reel. A fat man and a thin woman began a squat-legged dance, kicking and jiggling around the room.

“Tell us more about that pitchfork, Thuy,” said Luc, raising his voice. “You say he's a sorcerer who changes his form? And he's training you in the black arts?”

“Shut
up
!” said Thuy glancing around. “Better order them some wine, Azaroth.” With a shrug, the big fisherman complied.

“I'm sure Thuy would rather hear about us, dear Luc, than to talk about herself,” said Dora, as the pitchers arrived. “How about when they ran us out of Antwerp because you stopped time by pouring honey into the cathedral tower clock?”

“That was because you told the mayor that the Spaniards would invade on white horses,” said Luc. “And when he saw it was brown ticks on a herd of sheep, he said you'd be flogged at vespers.”

“Well, I wanted to impress the mayor so he'd save you from the butcher whom you'd struck blind,” said Dora.

“How did Luc strike him blind?” asked Azaroth, his mouth full.

“A self-working spell,” said Luc. “I told the butcher he was under a curse for having slaughtered a coal-black pig. And for a couple of days he believed me. We did what we liked.”

“That pig was good eating,” said Dora. “And the butcher's wife was screwing his apprentice three times a day. The wife's the one who hired Luc to blind her husband in the first place.”

“She went after the apprentice because Dora told her that a young man's sperm would cure her backache,” said Luc. “And, you know, it did.”

“Honey in the gears,” said Dora, with a witchy, gap-toothed cackle.

The tales ran on. After a while, Anja and Menso joined them, looking well spent. Azaroth was a little put out to see the two together, but Anja flirted with him until he cheered up. Menso began telling stories about acrobats he'd known, including, he claimed, a man who could play a bagpipe with his ass.

“Sounded just as good as these fellows,” he concluded, nodding his spiky head toward the inn's musicians. And then he started gossiping about a flying demon that had been spotted near the river beyond the gallows field. A monstrous thing like a devilfish or a sea skate.

Thuy didn't say anything to this, but she felt quite sure he was talking about a Hrull. And how would a Hrull have managed to jump over here? Most likely Chu was riding inside it. She really hoped Chu didn't mix into things before she'd had a chance to finish making up with Jayjay. In fact, it'd be best to go back to Bosch's cellar right now.

Just then a Hibraner snatched her out of her chair, the soft, sausage-thick fingers wrapping around her torso and her arms. Her captor was a red-faced man wearing a floppy gold beret.

“This little whore can service me now!” he boomed in his draggy Hibraner voice.

With the inevitability of a molasses-slow nightmare, the man shoved Thuy's head and shoulders so far down inside his ballooning pantaloons that her face was about to touch his—
ugh
! She landed a swift punch to his gut, doubling him over.

As she leapt free, Azaroth stepped forward to smack the man on the side of the head, sending him sprawling onto the tavern's filthy floor.

“Oh, oh,” said Luc, rising from his chair. “That's Alderman Vladeracken. And so we'll bid you good night. Thanks for the hospitality!” He and Dora hurried off, but not before Vladeracken had noticed them. Meanwhile, Azaroth set Thuy on his shoulder.

“You'll all pay for this,” croaked the alderman, slowly sitting up. “I'm not a man to be trifled with.”

Menso had taken a peacekeeping stance between the two men. “If you fight, you can't drink here,” he pointed out.

“You come trifle with
me
, Alderman,” said Anja, dangling her boobs in Vladeracken's face and helping him to his feet. “Show me what a roaring lion you are. Shall we start with a bath?”

“We can finish there, too, for all I care,” said Vladeracken, puffing himself up. “Let everyone see how I skewer a quail.” He turned away from Azaroth and Thuy as if they were invisible. “Wine, Vrouw Engst.”

His face stiff, Azaroth walked Thuy across the triangular marketplace. Even at this late hour, many were about, twining flowers onto wagons and brushing paint onto billowing sheets. Passing around the side of Bosch's house, Thuy found her way into his cellar and bedded down on the straw. She'd expected Jayjay to be here, but he wasn't.

Another crazy day. Was she really pregnant? Without
telepathy and omnividence, there was no way to double-check. If only it could really be Jayjay's baby. What was it that con artist Dora had said? Thuy was to give birth to a hero? That sounded nice. She smiled to herself.

 

 

She slept for a while, but then she woke, piqued by a pinprick in her armpit. She sat up in the cellar's humid gloom, scratching herself. It was still the middle of the night. Given that time went so slowly here, it was going to be a long wait for dawn. Another little stab of pain, this time on the nape of her neck. And then her ankle. Fleas! Wasn't there some ill medieval thing about rats, fleas, and the black plague? Shit.

Thuy was ravenously hungry. Compared to the Hibraners, she had a metabolism like a shrew that eats half her body weight per day. Creeping out from the cellar, she saw that Bosch's kitchen window was open. Leaning a garden ladder against the moonlit wall, she managed a successful foray into the house, helping herself to the breast of that chicken they'd started on yesterday, also a jug of milk and a boiled turnip.

Sitting on the back stoop, she stared at the sinking moon, amusing herself by making shrew faces—baring her teeth, drawing back her lower jaw, chewing the air. It was sort of relaxing to be off the mindweb, alone, creating her own fun.

Then she began worrying. Would they ever get home? And where was Jayjay? Was he off getting wasted again? Had he left with the pitchfork? Was he hurt? Should she look for him? But she didn't have the heart to go out roaming the streets for a second night in a row. Again and again her mind returned to her possible pregnancy.

She did some yoga exercises and then, as the moon set and the dew settled, she returned to the cellar. The fleas welcomed
her. As a distraction, she began going over her plans for her next metanovel,
Hive Mind
. The draft material she'd had in her lazy eight memory back home was gone, probably forever. But the main ideas were in her trusty meat-brain.

Hive Mind
would be about mythologizing life in the post–lazy eight world. Even though Thuy's potential readers were living the hylozoic life, they weren't necessarily appreciating it in depth. Yes, yes, the visionary work of Thuy Nguyen would help the cognoscenti comprehend the contours of their strange new reality!

She figured she'd use herself and her friends for characters, just like she'd done in
Wheenk
, her first metanovel, which had sold a couple of thousand copies.
Hive Mind
would be a sequel. As for the story, well—the adventure she was embroiled in right now was certainly exciting enough. But did it have a happy ending?